


Slow Days

by WarriorMR



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agent Washington has 5 million cavities from drinking sugary coffee, FREELANCERS BUT WITH NO ANGST?, Gen, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, RvB Secret Santa, RvB Secret Santa 2016, Silly, im bad at tagging im sorry;;
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorMR/pseuds/WarriorMR
Summary: Every Freelancer on the Mother of Invention was a bit of a prankster. That is, everyone but Washington. Usually he could see right through a prank or a joke with ease, but other times... he got called the 'gullible rookie' for months on end.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YoungJusticeAddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoungJusticeAddict/gifts).



It was a slow day on the _Mother of Invention_. Slow, of course, meaning _boring_ for most of the super-soldiers on board.

Agent Washington, however, took it as time to hone his skills on knife throwing. He _still_ couldn’t nail that one technique that Connie always showed off, and he could barely throw the knife as far and as accurately as she could. He just didn’t feel like he was good enough, not yet. (Not even when “I detect a _three-point-eight_ percent increase in accuracy, Agent Washington! Well done!” echoed around him.)

Declaring himself done for the time being, Wash made his way down to the mess hall for some grub. He found the counter showing off various plates of food and he grabbed some fruit (Fresh fruit in the middle of outer space. Modern science never ceases to amaze.), a small bowl of cereal, some more fruit, and went to sit at his usual table. He sat down, looked at his tray, and a small smile began to form on his face. Maybe he _was_ getting a little better at training, after all. He just needed to stop being so hard on himself. Wash reached for his mug, and --

Froze.

No mug. He forgot his coffee.

Washington stood up angrily and knocked straight into North Dakota.

“Hey, Wash,” North began with a friendly tone. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Wash, still somewhat bitter, replied, “Forgot my coffee,” before turning away and trying to stalk back up to the food area.

North stopped him, however. “How about,” he said, grabbing Wash’s attention, “you take a seat and I’ll get it for you.”

Wash blinked. “Oh.” He’d hardly considered that an option. “Yeah, thanks, North.”

“Not a problem!” North said with a cheerful smile as he made his way to the coffee machine.

Washington sat back down at his seat and began picking at his meal. A few seconds in and he was happily devouring everything on his plate.

North returned soon after, presenting him with a mug. “I put in four sugars, tell me if it tastes okay,” he said while taking a seat next to Wash.

He paused in his eating to take a sip out of the _Mother of Invention_ brand coffee mug™. He made a face, then shrugged in compliance. “Yeah, it’s okay. Could be a little sweeter, though.”

North chuckled a bit. “Jesus, you’re lucky we have dental.”

After getting food in both of their stomachs, North and Wash settled into a familiar pace of conversation. A feeling of contentment settled over them both as they casually bantered back-and-forth about the Project in general.

A few minutes later, Agent York walked through the double doors of the mess hall. He scanned the room and a smile broke out on his face when he saw North and Wash talking at their table. He didn’t even bother to grab anything to eat before making his way to their seats. “Howdy, y’all,” he said as a way of greeting, which earned him a snort and a half-hearted chuckle from his friends at the table.

“Goin’ in for your surgery today, York?” North asked with polite curiosity.

“Nah,” York dismissed. “Counselor pushed it to a week from Friday.”

Wash hummed under his breath. “Y’know, I really thought I was getting used to this place, but the _putting robots in people’s brains_ thing really threw me for a loop.”

“Yeah,” North said in agreement. “Oh!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Have you seen the... _sauna_ yet, Wash?”

“The what?!” Wash sputtered and almost spat out his not-sweet-enough-but-still-sweet coffee. “There’s a _sauna_?”

York made a face somewhere between _I’m-not-smiling-you-can’t-prove-anything_ and _oh-this-is-going-to-be-good_. “Oh yeah,” he confirmed. “ _Mother of Invention_ ’s got a _huuuge_ spa under the locker room.”

North glanced York’s way and his eyes were alight with amusement. “We can give you directions, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Not even the Director,” York added.

“Not even the Director,” North said with a nod.

Wash looked apprehensively down at his _MoI_ mug. “I mean... I feel like you guys are just messin’ with me.”

“Us?” York asked, faking hurt. He gingerly placed a hand on his chest, covering the _Grifball_ logo on his shirt. “We would never!”

“Yeah, that’s not really helping your case, York,” Wash deadpanned.

“Alright, alright,” North intervened. “How about this. We give you the directions, but ultimately it’s _your_ choice whether you follow them or not.”

Washington shrugged. “That sounds fair, I guess.”

“Okay, so me ‘nd Northy here are gonna give you directions later on today, right?”

North nodded in affirmation and Wash shrugged again.

“Be on the lookout for us.”

* * *

Wash squinted down at the square sheet of paper York had given him earlier. The circumstances in which York gave them to him in the first place were a little... odd. York had been red in the face, and he almost looked like he had been crying. Or laughing. Or crying from laughing. But the paper in his hand was really suspicious in a strange way. The top of it read “TREASURE HUNT” in light brown crayon -- which is another thing, where does a grown-ass military man find _crayons_ in the middle of an inter-galactic space war? -- It was decorated with sub-par crayon drawings of what appeared to be... treasure chests, some of the Freelancers, and an actually pretty funny caricature of the Director.

He squinted down at the paper as he walked through the halls. _Somehow I think this is a mistake_ , Wash thought to himself.

And so he began his search for the sauna that may or may not actually exist. He followed the crayon directions strictly, as if they weren't written by York and North and were instead written by someone who knew what the hell they were talking about. Maybe someone with handwriting better than a toddler’s.

His search led him to the Freelancer locker room, a spacious room filled with... lockers. What a surprise. Wash scoured the floor and gave each of the walls a once-over, and when he couldn't find anything -- realistically, what was he hoping to find? A secret passageway or a hidden door, maybe? -- he started again. He repeated this process quite a few times until a voice broke him out of it.

“Okay, I'll bite,” Agent Carolina said. “What are you doing, Wash?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m... I can’t tell you. I can't.” Washington glanced around the room again. “I'm not supposed to tell anybody, but I’m just so stressed, I've been looking all day, I don't know where else to look--”

Carolina caught his attention and initiated some _very intense_ eye contact. “Wash. _What are you talking about_?”

He huffed out a sigh and shoved the crayon-drawing-covered paper at her. “Can you just tell me where the sauna is?”

She blinked down at the paper and looked back at Wash. “...The... _sauna_.”

“Yeah, there's a sauna under the locker room, right? North and York told me and I’ve been looking for it all day, but I just can't find any way to get to it--”

“Whoa, okay, back up. York told you there's a sauna under the locker room. And then gave you...,” she motioned at the paper, “ _this_ so you could find it?”

“...Yeah, North, too.”

Carolina narrowed her eyes at the paper and hummed in her throat. Somehow it almost sounded like a growl.

“Oh God, please don’t.”

* * *

 “Agent Carolina.”

“Yes, sir,” she responded, the last word ending in more of a question than a statement.

“Care to tell me _why_ one of my top agents was landed in the infirmary today?”

Carolina stifled any emotion and replied with, “Insubordination, sir.” And it technically _was_ true, because York never listened to her when she said to not pick on the rookies too much.

“Insubordination,” the Director repeated with faint traces of amusement. Or was it disappointment? She couldn’t tell with him.

“That’s right, sir.”

“...I will speak to him later today. For now, you are dismissed. I need to have a word with the Counselor.”

“...Yes, sir.”

Carolina left the Director’s office and immediately cracked a huge smile at the turn of events. She waltzed down to the infirmary and watched through the glass at York, who sat upright on one of the cots with tape on his nose. He gestured wildly with his hands to Wash, no doubt creating an equally wildly exaggerated story out of what Carolina had done to him.

“What a bunch of idiots,” she mumbled to herself. A soft sound of footsteps reached her ears, and there was North, out of armor and smiling softly through the glass window.

“Idiots,” North repeated next to her, “but _my_ idiots.”

Idly, Carolina wondered why she had let him go without injury after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was honestly very fun to write bc i love talking about pfl-era freelancers and their interactions,, also because its a secret santa gift for youngjusticeaddict! i really hope you like it and that i didnt butcher any characterizations bc ooo boy that would be a mess. 
> 
> anyways, happy holidays everyone!!
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr at [marblehornetz](http://marblehornetz.tumblr.com)


End file.
